Fifty percent of poll respondents say the market will continue to get better in 2013 compared with only 16 percent who say they expect it to decline. An additional 31 percent say the market will stay about the same.

“Prices are very steadily, slowly, starting to creep back up,” says Eric Matheny, 31, an attorney from Fort Lauderdale,Florida, who purchased a new home five months ago. “The housing market is a major part of the economy, so it says something about the strength of the economy.”